PROVIDENCE – When the I-195 Redevelopment Commission convenes again on Monday evening, Feb. 16, at the CommerceRI headquarters on Iron Horse Way, Rhode Island’s field of dreams – some 19 acres and 17 parcels of reclaimed highway land currently known as The Link, will still be buried beneath a thick blanket of snow.

The meeting will mark the last session of the commission and its current lame-duck members, named by former Gov. Lincoln Chafee, before a new team, appointed by the new coach, Gov. Gina Raimondo, takes the field on March 11 at the commission’s next scheduled meeting.

The March 11 date, switched from March 16, takes on new significance in light of the fact that March 12 is the date that Raimondo’s first budget will be revealed – let’s call March 12  opening day in Rhode Island’s budget season.

The proposed FY 2016 budget will no doubt feature big cuts in spending in government services to control the burgeoning state deficit; the March 11 meeting then becomes the contrasting opportunity to showcase Raimondo’s promised plans to invest in growing Rhode Island’s future.

Even if the snow has not melted by then, the question is: can the new Raimondo administration “reverse the curse” that has befallen Rhode Island’s economy for much of the last decade by making the former highway land the cornerstone of its vision, including plans to build a new Rhode Island innovation institute?

The only holdover in the new commission lineup is Dr. Barrett Bready, the co-founder of Nabsys, a company in which Raimondo’s Point Judith Capital firm had invested.

Nabsys was featured in a campaign ad for Raimondo touting her job creation skills; Bready recently hosted a $1,000-a-person fundraiser for Raimondo a week after her inauguration.

All of the new commission members were campaign contributors to Raimondo: Joseph F. Azrack, Robert C. Davis, Elizabeth Huidekoper, Melissa Husband, Edwin J. Santos and Sandra Smith, a fact that was conveniently left out of the news release. The choices were made in consultation with Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, R.I. Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed and R.I. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello.

A city upon a hill
“We are not the builder of buildings, we are the plower of fields,” said Colin Kane, the outgoing chairman of the I-195 Redevelopment Commission, on Nov. 20, 2013, announcing the launch of The Link to brand the reclaimed highway land.

Toward that end, the commission under Kane focused on building the underground infrastructure – creating the electrical, water and sewage connections to make the land development ready as the best way to attract new development.

In an impatient culture and society more accustomed to instant gratification, the farming metaphor of being a plower of fields never resonated and became a political liability.

Raimondo, in turn, is planning to take a different approach, to be a builder of buildings, judging from her rhetoric.

On July 28, 2013, in a made-for-media event, in front of members of construction unions that were supporting her campaign, Raimondo proposed building a Rhode Island Innovation Institute campus on the former Route 195 land, to support a hub of applied research in advanced manufacturing.

She promoted the concept: if you build it, they will come, predicting that companies would flock to be part of a new manufacturing hub.

“Places like North Carolina, Ohio and New York are investing in innovation institutes, and we should as well,” Raimondo said, touting her vision of the new campus construction for an innovation institute. [See link to ConvergenceRI article below.]

There were some significant details left out: how much it would cost, who would pay for it, how long it would take to build, and how it would differ from what was happening in North Carolina and Ohio, which were part of a federal initiative begun by President Obama.

New York City followed a different model, a public-private partnership between Cornell University, New York City, and an Israeli company, to build a new campus. [See link to ConvergenceRI article below.]

The right tool for the job
In his testimony before the R.I. Senate Commerce Committee at his confirmation hearing on Feb. 3, Stefan Pryor, the newly confirmed head of CommerceRI, did not talk directly about a new Rhode Island Innovation Institute. His job, he testified, was “to reset Rhode Island’s trajectory,” calling the 195 Development District “a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Pryor framed his rhetorical approach like a good preacher, invoking chapter and verse of Rhode Island’s past history: Roger Williams and religious freedom, and Samuel Slater and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in America.

Talking about his former work in rebuilding Newark, New Jersey, while serving as deputy major, and in rebuilding lower Manhattan after the devastation caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pryor said: “I’ve seen what is possible when you make a realistic assessment of the challenges, identify the assets, and you develop a strategy and drive it forward with strong leadership.”

Our economic engine is not driving us forward, Pryor continued. “The challenge now is to capitalize on these assets and change perceptions inside and outside our borders about Rhode Island.”

“[We need] to ensure that Rhode Island receives the recognition it deserves as one of the best places in the Northeast to live, work and start a company,” Pryor said. All too often, Pryor told the Senators, “Rhode Island is not considered – we are not even at the table – when states are competing for businesses’ attention and investment.”

We need to crow, Pryor said, sounding a bit like Peter Pan.

In Pryor’s diagnosis of the state’s economic malaise, Rhode Island needed to have new tools in its toolbox for economic development, sounding much like R. Crumb’s cartoon character, Mr. Natural, who recommended: “Get the right tool for the job.”

What exactly those tools are, however, have not been shared or discussed publicly. Nor have any of the plans, first sketched out by Raimondo during her campaign for governor, to build a Rhode Island Innovation Institute on the former Route 195 land, been shared.

Managing the message
It’s not clear whether or not the next phase of Make It In RI will be unveiled at the March 11 meeting, with a catchy new slogan, in support of building a Rhode Island Innovation Institute.

What is clear, however, is that the Raimondo administration is building a moat between itself and the news media. Attempts by ConvergenceRI to interview Pryor, Raimondo’s economic development czar, have been consistently rebuffed for more than two months.

ConvergenceRI is not the only one that is chafing over the command and control style of Raimondo’s office. Witness the recent tweet from Providence Journal reporter Kathy Gregg on Feb. 12: “One after another, knowledgeable/respected people in govt. are telling me they have been ordered to direct all Q to gov’s office.” #muzzled

The value of dialogue
What follows is an imaginary interview with Stefan Pryor, the newly confirmed head of CommerceRI, and the driver of Raimondo’s economic development strategy for Rhode Island.

The questions are real, very real; the answers are made up. ConvergenceRI would much prefer that the interview was real, but the Raimondo administration has refused so far to grant access to ConvergenceRI to interview Pryor.

After two months of asking every week, in phone calls, in emails, and in person, for an interview, after being assured at events that my request is being attended to, ConvergenceRI is not holding its breath, or, for that matter, waiting until the snow melts.

For the record: it has now been nine weeks since ConvergenceRI first asked for an interview with Stefan Pryor, on the night he was first publicly introduced to Rhode Island as the choice to head CommerceRI, at Raimondo’s job summit on Dec. 16. That request has been renewed every week since then, in persistent emails and phone calls.

At Pryor’s confirmation hearing before the R.I. Senate Commerce on Feb. 3, after Pryor had been unanimously recommended for confirmation, ConvergenceRI approached Pryor in person, asking why he had not responded to an interview request.

Pryor expressed surprise, saying he had never been informed, that he would be happy to meet with ConvergenceRI, and asked his top aide, Wade Gibson, to make the arrangements. Gibson, in turn, emailed to say that ConvergenceRI’s request to interview Pryor had been forwarded to the press office. A week later, there still has not been a response.

Here, then, is the imagined interview with Pryor: once again, the questions are real; the answers are imagined.

ConvergenceRI: Why have you ducked an interview for more than two months?
PRYOR: I haven’t ducked the interview; the press office recommended against it, and I followed their directions. I am a team player, and Gov. Raimondo is the coach.

ConvergenceRI: What was their reasoning?
PRYOR: You’re smart enough to know how politics works, aren’t you? I mean, you called the jobs summit a staged reality show audition; you called out the press office for leaking the firing of Christy Ferguson two days before Christmas; you pointed out that the health industry sector, the largest private employer, has been left out of the jobs discussion; you mocked our slogan, “Making It In RI,” comparing it with the 1980s version of “Make It In Massachusetts.” You challenged whether Gov. Raimondo would be able to become a national leader in controlling Medicaid costs? What did you expect the reaction was going to be?

ConvergenceRI: I’m glad that you’re reading ConvergenceRI so carefully. I’ll take that as a compliment. But, you’re smart enough to know that the role of the news media is not to play obedient lap dog and roll over, sit up and give you a paw every time you ask. My job is to ask good questions, to provide accurate reporting and analysis; it’s not to write sycophantic pieces to promote your agenda in order to curry favor with you. What has caused the delay in granting an interview?
PRYOR: It wasn’t a smart move to confront me at the confirmation hearing and ask me for an interview, because it made the new press secretary look bad. You have to be more respectful.

ConvergenceRI: I had been respectfully asking for an interview for seven weeks, without a response. The new press secretary told me afterward, as we were waiting for the State House elevator, that you had known about my interview request. That means, either she’s not telling the truth, or you’re not telling the truth. I don’t want to go there; that’s a lose lose situation.

Let’s move ahead with questions about Rhode Island’s economic future development: why has the biomedical industry been left out of the Raimondo talking points so far? You’ve talked about food, about tourism, about workforce development, about restarting manufacturing? Why not the biomedical industry?
PRYOR: To be frank, we don’t believe that it has the legs to drive the economy in Rhode Island for immediate job growth. It wasn’t identified in The Rhode Island Foundation’s state action plan as a top target. It’s more of a long-term investment. We need to create jobs right now to build up our middle class.

ConvergenceRI: That’s surprising, given the emerging strength of the biomedical industry sector and the health innovation sectors in Rhode Island – there’s a steady stream of about $250 million a year flowing into the state in research dollars to support that economic engine.

In Connecticut, where you most recently served as education commissioner, Yale University has moved aggressively to build up its biomedical infrastructure. In Farmington, Conn., UConn’s medical school is building a new $1 billion facility in partnership with The Jackson Laboratory, focused on translational genomic medicine.

The freeing up of $4.3 million in federal funds flowing to the Slater Technology Fund, with another $2.8 million to follow, to make seed investments in new Rhode Island technology companies, seems ready-made to grow the state’s emerging biomedical innovation ecosystem.

Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, has called for a $100 million public-private fund to invest in biotech and neuroscience, as a suggestion to the Providence Business News as what could turn Rhode Island around.

And Tom Murphy, the former mayor of Pittsburgh, who said he had recently talked with you, called Rhode Island’s research engine its “coal in the ground.”

I was surprised that you hadn’t yet met with the folks at the Slater Technology Fund. Do you have a meeting set up?
PRYOR: It’s on the calendar, pending snow emergencies.

ConvergenceRI: How about meeting with Dr. Annie De Groot at EpiVax?
PRYOR: Not yet. I don’t believe I’ve met her. Who is she?

ConvergenceRI: EpiVax has developed new informatic tools to analyze the human immune system. The company’s technology platform has gained new international traction to make vaccines safe and to make therapeutics safe.

De Groot is the CEO and chief science officer at the company; she is also the director of iCubed, the Institute for Immunology and Informatics at the University of Rhode Island. And, she is volunteer medical director at Clinica Esperanza, a free clinic providing primary care to about 1,500 patients.

It may sound a little technical, but De Groot and her team have been able to show how pathogens adopt what are known as human Treg epitopes to suppress immune response to themselves.

She and her team are at the forefront of the work that President Obama recently targeted in his $215 personalized medicine initiative.
PRYOR: Thanks for the suggestion; I’ll look into it.

ConvergenceRI: Looking at the new appointees by Raimondo to the I-195 Redevelopment Commission, I was a bit puzzled by the selection of Edwin Santos, the chairman of the board of the for-profit Prospect CharterCARE hospital system. Why not select someone from either Lifespan or Care New England, the two largest nonprofit hospital systems in Rhode Island, with the largest research capabilities, with medical campuses that are closest to the former highway land. Were you snubbing them?
PRYOR: No, it was not intended as a snub. The choices were made after careful consideration and review, by what each candidate could bring to the table.

ConvergenceRI: It still seems awkward to me, particularly when Lifespan has a research division headquartered in the former Jewelry District/Knowledge District bringing in about $90 million a year in research funds and employing about 1,000 people in good-paying jobs.

What do you think about the idea of creating a building that would house neuroscience research activities on the reclaimed highway land? Will that be part of the plans for the Rhode Island Innovation Institute?
PRYOR: We are still looking at potential ideas for different uses for land, but nothing has been decided.

ConvergenceRI: In terms of business leaders, have you met with Robert Rabiner of IlluminOss? Or Aidan Petrie at Ximedica? Or Vanessa King, the new CEO of Mnemosyne? All are Rhode Island businesses in the state’s innovation ecosystem in the biomedical industry sector that have received large investments from venture capital in the last year or so.
PRYOR: Not yet. I admit I have a steep learning curve.

ConvergenceRI: Have you had any discussions with the John Adams Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, to talk with them about how they have structured their investments in the Massachusetts Innovation Economy?
PRYOR: Not yet. Why do you think we should talk with them, and not Gov. Charlie Baker?

ConvergenceRI: For the last decade, the Innovation Institute has been at the forefront of most of Massachusetts economic development initiatives – everything from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative to MassChallenge, from matching investments in new federal research centers in nanotechnology engineering at UMass and Northeastern to the development of the state’s Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative.
PRYOR: I am not familiar with them.

ConvergenceRI: One of the Innovation Institute’s ongoing projects is an Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, developing new metrics to measure the innovation ecosystem. Do you think that is something Rhode Island should consider creating for itself?
PRYOR: It sounds like a good idea, one of many that I will consider moving forward.

ConvergenceRI: At the confirmation hearings, you had mentioned that you had met a couple of times with Barbara Fields, the new interim head of Rhode Island Housing, to sketch out potential plans in the housing sector? What are those plans?
PRYOR: I’ll be happy to share them when we’re ready to share them. I’m not ready to share publicly what those discussions have been. At the appropriate time we will move forward with our plans.

ConvergenceRI: Can you at least sketch out the role that affordable housing should play in the new Raimondo budget, to be delivered on March 12?
PRYOR: Not yet. It’s a work in progress. In my work in Newark, and in New York City, I have always put an emphasis on housing redevelopment, I can say that.

ConvergenceRI: Are you aware of the R.I. Alliance for Green & Healthy Homes, and the work being done to jumpstart a healthy homes initiative in Providence?
PRYOR: No, I’m not.

ConvergenceRI: I realize that I’m running out of time, but I have many more questions, particularly around how health care and health innovation intersects with economic development. Perhaps we can schedule another interview. But, as a starting point, can you talk about how you envision health care as part of the economic development agenda?
PRYOR: I think the more important question is how we are investing in workforce development in training our future employees for 21st century jobs, rather than focus on any one particular sector. We need a partnership between education and industry.

ConvergenceRI: Have you visited yet the Rhode Island Nurses Institute Middle College, which has developed a new model for educating nurses, as a four-year program beginning in the 10th grade?
PRYOR: Not yet.

ConvergenceRI: Back to the health care – and health innovation – question. Why was it excluded from the topics in the initial job summit in December? Once again, how do you think it plays in your future economic development plans?
PRYOR: Let’s save it for our next conversation.

ConvergenceRI: Fine – as long as it doesn’t take another two months for that to happen. One last question: Why did you choose to live in Providence, in the former Jewelry District/Knowledge District? What was the attraction?
PRYOR: My answer will have to wait for our next conversation. Thanks.